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by Glynn Wilson
(LFJ) - The Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta has ordered a new hearing before Chief U.S. District Judge Mark E. Fuller on the issue of whether former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman should be released from prison pending the outcome of his appeal.
A three-judge panel remanded the case back to Fuller, arguing that it appears as if Siegelman's lawyers never properly filed a motion for his release on appeal. The ruling also seems to take the judge to task for discussing the issue of Siegelman's release on appeal and not fully explaining why the former governor was jailed immediately instead.
"The district court made comments in the course of denying Siegelman’s motion to surrender voluntarily to prison which may reasonably be interpreted as a finding that Siegelman was ineligible for release pending appeal," the ruling indicates. "Regarding Siegelman’s motion for release pending appeal, the Government’s response to the motion, and Siegelman’s reply to the Government’s response are hereby REMANDED on a limited basis, for expeditions consideration and disposition by the district court. The district court’s order should explain the reasons for the court’s ruling."
According to Redding Pitt, one of Siegelman's attorneys, Fuller would not allow the defense to even make a motion on the issue of his remaining free on appeal. The judge ruled Siegelman was not eligible under federal rules.
"The court at sentencing would not let us make the motion, much less make an argument in support," Mr. Pitt said. "That is what the appeals court is referring to in a portion of the opinion."
What the ruling means in lay terms, according to Siegelman supporter Pam Miles, is that "Judge Fuller denied release pending appeal on the day of sentencing. In sending Siegelman directly to jail, it is implied that Fuller must have had a good reason for his actions even though they have not been stated.
"Siegelman should have appealed to Fuller in writing instead of directly to (the) 11th circuit. However, the (appeals panel) states that they understand why Siegelman didn’t do this," she says. "It is certainly implied that they are referring to the act of shackling and taking him to prison that night."
"Accordingly," she says, "the (appeals panel) is asking Fuller to formally rule on the appeal bond motions with a full explanation of his ruling."
One source who is familier with this case, and how legal appeals work in the South, says it is likely that the appeals panel has indicated to Fuller that he better release Siegelman (and Scrushy?) - or they will.
AP: Appellate Judges Ask Trial Court to Decide on Siegelman Release
View the full order here:
Download Circuit_Order1.PDF
by Paul Jordon
It’s Sunshine State vs. Heart of Dixie Week in the SEC.
The top two games on this week’s Southeastern Conference football schedule both feature an Alabama at Florida theme. No, it’s not exactly like it sounds. Bama isn’t playing the Gators. The Crimson Tide is tackling Florida State at a so-called neutral site, in Jacksonville, while Auburn’s Tigers will try to avoid becoming Gator bait, which is always a hard thing to do when playing in The Swamp at Gainesville. Both Alabama teams head south as underdogs - Bama by 2-points and Auburn by a whopping 18.
It will be all about revenge at The Swamp. The Gators (4-0 and ranked No. 4) have won 11 straight games, one shy of tying the school record for consecutive triumphs. And guess who beat them last? If you said Auburn, you are right. The Tigers used home-field advantage to upend Florida 27-17 last season at Jordan-Hare. Now it’s the Gators’ turn.
There’s no pretense in Gainesville that revenge is not a factor in the upcoming game. The Gators remember well how they felt that October night last year in Auburn and want the Tigers to feel the same pain on Saturday. The fact that the defeat served as a turning point for the Gators, pulling them together as a team and setting them on their way to the national title, doesn’t change the fact that Florida wants revenge. The loss lingers because they are few and far between these days in Gainesville.
The drama surrounding the Alabama-FSU game is the Bobby Bowden saga. The coach that always wanted to coach in Tuscaloosa and was turned down in favor of Bill Curry will be coaching his first game against the Tide. Bowden is the winningest college football coach in history with 368 victories and a lifelong Alabama fan - such a fan that when growing up he used to cry when the Tide suffered a loss.
Maybe because the game is in Florida, maybe because of Bowden, but for some reason the oddsmakers have made the 2-1 and unranked Seminoles slight favorites over the No. 22-ranked Tide, 3-1 after its overtime loss last week to Georgia.
The game could be a low-scoring affair. FSU has one of the best run defenses in the nation, while struggling on offense this year. Bama QB John Parker Wilson had a rough outing against the Bulldogs last week and will need a better performance if the Tide is to prevail.
The rest of this week’s SEC slate is fairly ho-hum. There are two other conference games, both East-West division battles, with the East team favored in both. No. 16 South Carolina (3-1, 1-1) hosts Mississippi State (3-1, 1-1) as a 14-point favorite. No. 15 Georgia (3-1, 1-1) entertains hard luck Ole Miss (1-3, 0-2). The Bulldogs are favored to win by 15.
There are four other SEC games this Saturday, with conference teams taking on homecoming-game-type foes, all heavily favored to win. Kentucky (4-0 and ranked No. 15) is hosting Florida Atlantic (3-1), Arkansas (1-2) will be at home to North Texas (0-3) and Vanderbilt (2-1) entertains Eastern Michigan (2-2). The only one of the four to not be at home will be LSU. The No. 2-ranked Tigers (4-0) play in-state rival Tulane (1-2) in the New Orleans Superdome. LSU in a 40-point favorite.
Saturday’s weekend TV lineup, other than pay-for-view:
N.C. at Virginia Tech, 11 a.m., WB
Villanova at James Madison., 11 a.m., CSS
Notre Dame at Purdue, 11 a.m., ESPN
LSU at Tulane, 11 a.m., ESPN2
Temple at Army, 11 a.m., ESPNU
Miss. State at South Carolina, 11:30 a.m., Lincoln Financial Sports
Baylor at Texas A&M, 11:30 p.m., Versus
Oklahoma at Colorado, 12:30 p.m., FSN South
Tenn. St, at Florida A&M, 2 p.m., SportSouth
Clemson at Ga. Tech, 2:30 p.m., ABC
W. Carolina at Ga. Southern, 2:30 p.m., CSS
Michigan St. at Wisconsin, 2:30 p.m., ESPN
Louisville at N.C. State, 2:30 p.m., ESPNU
Alabama at FSU, 4 p.m., CBS
UCLA at Oregon St., 5:30 p.m., FSN South
La. Monroe at Troy, 6 p.m., CSS
Pitt at Virginia, 6 p.m., ESPNU
Auburn at Florida, 7 p.m., ESPN
Ohio St. at Minnesota, 7 p.m., ESPN2
Southern Cal at Washington, 7 p.m., ABC
Southern at Alabama St., 9 p.m., ESPNU
Cincinnati at San Diego, 9 p.m., Versus
I have to admit to being more schooled in science than in art, having been forced in the Jefferson County, Alabama, public school system to choose only one art. I chose the high school band and played the drums. So I never got to take an art class.
Even in college, as a print journalism major and a political science minor, I never had to take an art appreciation class.
Into my master's and Ph.D. years in the 1990s, I spent most of my time studying science and communications research.
But as I crest middle age and once again take up the camera, I find myself more and more interested in art.
What is art? What makes it special or mundane?
I learned something of art from my close friend Spider Martin, an artist turned photographer. He idolized the artistic genius Pablo Picasso, not only for his art but for his personal life as a renowned womanizer.
I can only know what I read about his personal life, but looking at his art work it is clear he has impacted the development of modern and contemporary art with unparalleled magnitude.
His prolific output includes over 20,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, theater sets and costumes that convey a myriad of intellectual, political, social, and amorous messages, according to James Voorhies with the Department of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Picasso's creative styles transcend realism and abstraction, Cubism, Neoclassicism, Surrealism and Expressionism.
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | Pablo Picasso's depiction of the dying bull at the end of a Spanish bullfight |
Born in Malaga, Spain, in 1881, Picasso studied art briefly in Madrid in 1897, then in Barcelona in 1899, where he became closely associated with a group of modernist poets, writers, and artists who gathered at the café Els Quatre Gats (The Four Cats), including the Catalan Carlos Casagemas (1880–1901).
Living intermittently in Paris and Spain until 1904, his work during these years suggests feelings of desolation and darkness inspired in part by the suicide of his friend Casagemas. Picasso's paintings from late 1901 to about the middle of 1904, referred to as his Blue Period, depict themes of poverty, loneliness, and despair. In The Blind Man's Meal (50.188) from 1903, he uses a dismal range of blues to sensitively render a lonely figure encumbered by his condition as he holds a crust of bread in one hand and awkwardly grasps for a pitcher with the other. The elongated, corkscrew bodies of El Greco (1541–1614) inspire the man's distorted features.
Picasso moved to Paris in 1904 and settled in the artist quarter Bateau-Lavoir, where he lived among bohemian poets and writers such as Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918) and Max Jacob (1876–1944). In At the Lapin Agile (1992.391) from 1905, Picasso directs his attention toward more pleasant themes such as carnival performers, harlequins, and clowns. In this painting, he uses his own image for the harlequin figure and abandons the daunting blues in favor of vivid hues, red for example, to celebrate the lives of circus performers (categorically labeled his Rose Period). In Paris, he found dedicated patrons in American siblings Gertrude (1874–1946) and Leo (1872–1947) Stein, whose Saturday evening salons in their home at 27, rue des Fleurus was an incubator for modern artistic and intellectual thought. At the Steins he met other artists living and working in the city - generally referred to as the "School of Paris"—such as Henri Matisse (1869–1954). Painted in 1906, Gertrude Stein (47.106) records Picasso's early stylistic experiments with primitivism influenced by a new fascination with pre-Roman Iberian sculpture and African and Oceanic art. Concentrating on intuition rather than strict observation, and unsatisfied with the features of Stein's face, Picasso reworked her image into a masklike manifestation stimulated by primitivism.
The influence of African and Oceanic art is explicit in his masterpiece Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907; Museum of Modern Art, New York), a painting that signals the nascent stages of Cubism. Here the figure arrangement recalls Cézanne's compositions of bathers while stylistically it is influenced by primitivism, evident by the angular planes and well-defined contours that create an overall sculptural solidity in the figures.
The basic principles of Analytic Cubism (1910–12), with its fragmentation of three-dimensional forms on a two-dimensional picture plane, are embodied in Still Life with a Bottle of Rum (1999.363.63), painted in 1911. The techniques of Analytic Cubism were developed by Picasso and the French artist Georges Braque (1882–1963), who met in 1907. Picasso's Bottle and Wine Glass on a Table (49.70.33) of 1912 is an early example of Synthetic Cubism (1912–13), a papier collé in which he pasted newsprint and colored paper onto canvas. Picasso and Braque also included tactile components such as cloth in their Synthetic Cubist works, and sometimes used trompe-l'oeil effects to create the illusion of real objects and textures, such as the grain of wood.
After World War I (1914–18), Picasso reverted to traditional styles, experimenting less with Cubism. In the early 1920s, he devised a unique variant of classicism using mythological images such as centaurs, minotaurs, nymphs, and fauns inspired by the classical world of Italy. Within this renewed expression, referred to as his Neoclassical Period, he created pictures dedicated to motherhood inspired by the birth of his son Paulo in 1921 (his first of four children by three women). Woman in White (53.140.4) of 1923 shows a woman clothed in a classic, toga-like, white dress resting calmly in a contemplative pose with tousled hair, eliciting a tender lyricism and calming spirit of maternity.
Toward the end of the 1920s, Picasso drew on Surrealist imagery and techniques to make pictures of morphed and distorted figures. In Nude Standing by the Sea (1996.403.4) of 1929, Picasso's figure recounts the classical pose of a standing nude with her arms upraised, but her body is swollen and monstrously rearranged.
By the early 1930s, Picasso had turned to harmonious colors and sinuous contours that evoke an overall biomorphic sensuality. He painted scenes of women with drooping heads and striking voluptuousness with a renewed sense of optimism and liberty, probably inspired by his affair with a young woman (one of Picasso's numerous mistresses) named Marie-Thérèse Walter (1909–1977). Girl Reading at a Table (1996.403.1) from 1934 uses these expressive qualities of bold colors and gentle curves to portray Marie-Thérèse seated at an oversized table, emphasizing her youth and innocence.
Although still living in France in the 1930s, Picasso was deeply distraught over the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. He reacted with a powerfully emotive series of pictures, such as The Dream and Lie of Franco (1986.1224.1[2]), that culminated in the enormous mural Guernica (1937; Reina Sofía National Museum, Madrid), painted in a grisaille palette of gray tones. This painting, Picasso's contribution to the Spanish Pavilion in the 1937 Exposition Universelle in Paris, is a complex work of horrifying proportion with layers of antiwar symbolism protesting the fascist coup led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco.
From the late 1940s through the '60s, Picasso's creative energy never waned. Living in the south of France, he continued to paint, make ceramics, and experiment with printmaking. His international fame increased with large exhibitions in London, Venice, and Paris, as well as retrospectives in Tokyo in 1951, and Lyon, Rome, Milan, and São Paulo in 1953. A retrospective in New York at the Museum of Modern Art in 1957 garnered a massive amount of attention, with over 100,000 visitors during the first month. This exhibition solidified Picasso's prominence as museums and private collectors in America, Europe, and Japan vied to acquire his works.
In Faun and Starry Night (1970.305) from 1955, Picasso returned to the mythological themes explored in early pictures. Again, incorporating life experience into his painting, he evokes his infatuation with a new love, a young woman named Jacqueline Roque (1927–1986), who became his second wife in 1961 when the artist was seventy-nine years old. In this painting, Picasso symbolizes himself as a faun, calmly and coolly gazing with mature confidence and wisdom at a nymph who blows her instrument to the stars. The picture embraces his spellbound love for Jacqueline.
Even into his eighties and nineties, Picasso produced an enormous number of works and reaped the financial benefits of his success, amassing a personal fortune and a superb collection of his own art, as well as work by other artists. He died in 1973, leaving an artistic legacy that continues to resonate today throughout the world.
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
Perhaps Alabama Governor Bob Riley has a heart after all, or maybe he just knows serious political pressure when he sees it.
Within a half hour of our posting the editorial below and sending it via e-mail to the governor's office, "Cowboy boots" Bob granted a 45-stay of execution for death row inmate Tommy Arthur.
His justification?
Riley said a change made this week in the state's lethal injection procedures, announced on Wednesday, were designed to ensure that the inmate is unconscious when given drugs to stop his heart and lungs. Arthur was scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. today, but he would not have received the new lethal injection formula, Riley said.
AP: Alabama Governor Grants 45-Day Stay of Execution for Arthur
There was no word from the governor's office on whether he will reconsider his decision not to push the state legislature for a post-conviction DNA testing law, which is the law in 42 of the 50 states.
We urge Governor Riley and the Alabama Legislature to immedietely change the law and allow DNA testing in any case where it is warranted to avoid any possibility of putting innocent convicts to death.
Alabama Governor Has A Chance Today to Do The Right Thing
He Can Order DNA Testing in a Death Penalty Case
Alabama's Republican Governor Bob Riley has a chance today to do the right thing for once in his political career.
But he may find it difficult in his black heart, due to political pressure from the Christian Right for Republicans to be tough on crime and pro-death penalty.
It is one of those strange ironies in American politics that those who fight the hardest for "life" in the case of unborn babies seem to be the most ardent supporters of "death" when it comes to accused criminals - not to mention their support of American wars in the Middle East and elsewhere.
In the case of Thomas Douglas Arthur, who is scheduled to die tonight by lethal injection in Alabama's famous Holman prison for the murder of Troy Wicker Jr., 35, who was shot in 1982 through the right eye while he slept in his home in Muscle Shoals, Riley seems intent on doing the wrong thing.
While Arthur's case has not drawn the level of protest of some in the past, in part perhaps because he is white, the human rights advocacy group Amnesty International did call on Governor Riley to delay the execution.
Governor Riley Asked to Delay Execution
So far he has refused, and even the conservative Birmingham News, which has sung Riley's praises for the past five years, has taken him to task on this issue.
Riley Fails Test, Again
The U.S. Supreme Court has signaled an interest in potentially overturning lethal injection as the primary method for sending death row inmates to their final breath, agreeing to take up two Kentucky cases. The defendants in those cases both argue that the pain that goes along with lethal injection's three-drug cocktail constitutes unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.
Supreme Court Agrees to Consider Lethal Injection
Ruling on Kentucky Case Revives Arthur Appeal
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta had a chance to weigh in on this one, but the justices balked.
Appeals Court Denies Stay for Alabama Inmate
Governors in many states have ordered DNA testing in similar death penalty cases, including George W. Bush when he was governor of Texas and his brother Jeb as governor of Florida.
But for reasons he can only know in his heart, Riley has refused. Some anti-death penalty activists say this constitutes political murder.
"What we are witnessing on September 27 is not an execution, but is a murder," Justice Denied Publisher Hans Sherrer says.
ThomasArthurFightForLife.com
Part of the problem is that unlike 42 other states in the Union, Alabama does not have a law requiring post-conviction DNA testing. So here, the decision is left to the governor.
Riley could have ordered DNA testing in Arthur's case a couple of weeks ago without even delaying the execution date, according to the national Innocence Project, which fights the death penalty all over the country.
And in this case, even family members of the man who was killed would like to see the DNA evidence pursued.
"I would like to see this evidence subjected to DNA testing," Peggy Wicker Jones said in a statement made public Aug. 21. "I would like to have as much information as possible about what happened on the day my brother Troy was murdered."
Innocence Project co-director Peter Neufeld called it "unconscionable" that Riley would not insist on using the best science available to determine the truth before putting inmates to death.
We have long said that the state should not be in the business of killing people for any reason and urged the U.S. Supreme Court to once again overturn the death penalty as unconstitutional as it did in the 1960s. Bringing it back in the late 1970s was a mistake for a civilized society held up as a beacon of freedom for the world, especially since virtually all of the evidence shows the death penalty is no deterrent to violent crime and actually costs more to administer than a life sentence.
But at the very least, if the state is going to be in the business of killing convicted criminals, it should use every means at its disposal, including the best science on DNA testing, to avoid any chance of putting innocent people to death.
Governor Riley, are you listening? Only you can do the right thing in this case.
Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson
Where are the super heroes worthy of legend in our world today?
Greece and Rome had Hercules.
America had Superman. Lest we forget, he was by day the mild-mannered reporter for The Daily Planet Clark Kent.
Hercules is the Roman name for the mythical Greek hero Heracles, son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmena. He was made to perform 1200 great tasks to cleanse himself - after he went temporarily insane and killed his wife and kids, along with his entire village, an oft forgotten part of his heroic tale.
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | Hercules at The Met |
While he was a champion and a great warrior, Hercules was not above cheating and using any unfair trick to his advantage, historians say. Later, Hercules went mad with rage and slaughtered cows.
So much for the foibles of heroes.
In Roman works of art and in Renaissance and post-Renaissance art that adapts Roman iconography, Hercules can be identified as an example of action and masculinity. He embodies great strength, courage - and great appetites, including erotic adventures with both women and boys.
So much for the foibles of heroes.
Hercules was renowned for making "the world safe for mankind" since he supposedly destroyed many terrible beasts, including the snake-headed Medusa. His "self-sacrifice" obtained his welcome from the gods, as the half-son of Zeus, into Olympia, the Greek version of heaven.
Wiki Hercules
Superman, on the other hand, was born on another planet but became the savior of Metropolis and was known to stand for quaint things such as, "Truth, Justice and the American way." Of course he would tell Louis Lane this right before taking her out for a late night flight around the city, and then back to her place for some super sex.
So much for the foibles of heroes.
Wiki Superman
I've never been one to put that much stock in heroes anyway, myself, as more than fantasy.
Even the biggest Superhero of them all for Christians, Jesus, who would save them all for their sins and assure them a nice seat on the grass in heaven, always struck me as lacking in ultimate authenticity.
Maybe it's just that I've never met a real hero in person.
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | Jesus on the cross depicted in centuries-old art at The Met |
Oh, I've interviewed a few who drew the title, for saving kids from burning buildings, being wounded for their country in a war. But even most wars seem of questionable validity when you look closely at their political genesis.
In today's pop culture, we often refer to rock stars as our heroes, along with football players, race car drivers and movie actors. But some of us seem to bitch like hell when an actor comments on the state of the world or politics.
I mean, look at the Dixie Chicks? Natalie Main is my hero, for saying what she did and taking the heat and coming back to win the big Grammy.
What about politicians? Do you know of a politician you would call a hero? I don't, and I've been covering politics for almost 30 years.
John McCain was a bona fide war hero, serving years in a North Vietnamese prison camp. Until recently, when he decided to run for president, he was seen as a maverick, tell it like it is statesman. But no more.
John Kerry is a larger than life kind of character, all rich and smart from Massachusetts, with that big face and his own Vietnam bona fides. But nobody in the American South saw him that way in the 2004 race, because the old Wallace anti-Ivy League Yankee liberal label still works for the likes of Karl Rove, George Bush and the GOP.
Maybe he should have shot his duck hunting companion back during that campaign. It would have made him seem more manly, like Dick Cheney.
I certainly don't know of any heroes alive from my home state of Alabama, with the possible exception of E.O. Wilson, and he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts now too.
Where are the media heroes?
Now that's where the story gets interesting.
Scott Horton is the last of the crusading New York lawyers with an interest in justice and the South, specifically Alabama and the case of railroaded former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.
The folks over at The Nation Institute seem genuinely interested in what's going on down here, and have a long-term project going on all about "purple America," where the liberals and conservatives are mixed in all over the place, even here in Alabamaland.
It's sort of nice to be back in the bunker with my computer wall working, although I would trade it all in, in a New York heartbeat, for a loft in the West Village or SoHo. That is if I didn't have familial responsibilities here - and if someone would pay me enough to live and work there.
I suspect I could write and drink with the best of them. I did it in New Orleans, and never had to publish one correction in four years.
You see, I'm sort of like Superboy. I take this American journalism shit seriously, maybe too seriously at times. I've been called a "true believer" right up there with Jill Simpson.
Maybe if we had a few more true believers - who were willing to do what it takes to be a superhero - we could straiten this old world out.
Hey, it's not like I'm countin' on it. Yet I have no choice but to fight. It's in my genes.
If I have to do that living on the road cowboying out of a van, so much the better. It's a great way to actually see the country.
Most people in New York, Washington and LA only see it from the air, which means they don't see it at all.
The good news is they need someone down here on the ground to tell them what is up in the South. As it turns out, that's my specialty.
So, for now I can definitely report that global warming is real and happening now in the American South.
See that red sun in the photo below? It was as hot as it looked coming down out of the Appalachians and into the foothills around Ft. Payne, Alabama, just northeast of Rainsville.
It was a nice two week break up the East Coast. Maybe fall will hit here soon and we can spot some migrating birds.
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | The final sunset on our Washington, New York trip, looking out over Ft. Payne, Alabama, in the foothills of the Applachian Mountains. |
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | A view from one of the many overlooks on the way back from the Chilhowee campground in the Cherokee National Forest. It was too hot and humid to camp, so we headed on back to Alabamaland last night. Going through all the pictures now. More to come... |
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | We pulled into the Smoky Mountain campground just in time to catch the moon - with a long exposure on the tripod - through the trees at old number 84 by the creek... |
by Glynn Wilson
GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS, Tenn., Sept. 24 - Imagine waking up every morning with a view of a different creek, lake, river or ocean. The picture window of life on the roads of America can be far better than any suburb, although the campgrounds on the East Coast can have similar annoyances.
There are so many people escaping the cities in RVs that the campgrounds stay busy. And some people bring along their loud kids and barking dogs and leave behind their trash.
But hey, that's America.
Then, here just a stone's throw from the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, construction workers are using a band saw and a nail gun to build a deck on the cabin across the creek in front of me, while a KOA park worker blows leaves by the swimming pool behind me.
Where do you have to go to escape the noise of modern life?
There is one man working out his fly rod in a deep hole down stream while his wife takes pictures.
I am on my fourth cup of coffee and contemplating where to go next.
It is only about a four hour drive to Birmingham from here, but I'm not feeling quite ready to go home just yet. I left the Magic City on a Wednesday almost two weeks ago and headed north of Knoxville, then made my way into Virginia for the assault on Washington, D.C.
I caught up with Jill Simpson there and the House Judiciary Committee, then followed the anti-Iraq war protest from the White House to the Capitol.
I camped out with high speed Wi-Fi in Maryland, then hauled ass to Brooklyn, New York, where I spent three whirlwind days there meeting with editors and seeing everything we could get to on time.
The view going into Manhattan was bigger than it looks on TV. The view leaving over the Staten Island bridge was such a powerful sight that it must have been almost overwhelming to the first visitors from Europe, there where the big East River heads for the Atlantic. I wish now I had thought to take out the camera and get a shot of it. But the traffic required total concentration.
There has been little time for bird chasing on this trip, but perhaps I will remedy that today. I think I'll drive through the Smokies headed south and pass through the Cherokee National Forest and pay homage to my ancesters amongst the tall, old trees.
Maybe I'll stop in on Lookout Mountain and catch the sunset near Rock City. If I feel like another night out on the road, there's always Lake Guntersville State Park, near Scottsboro and Rainsville.
Maybe I'll pop in on Jill Simpson on Tuesday and stop off by the Swann-Joy Bridge on the way home down Highway 79.
But for now I think I'll head up into the mountains in search of the legendary blue mist, which hovers in the nation's most visited national park like a wispy, smoke-like fog. It is created from rain and evaporation from the trees, although it can be obscured by the ozone haze, especially in the summer, from the nearby TVA coal-fired power plants.
Native Americans called this "the land of the blue mist."
But now the sun is rising through the trees over the canoe on the van, so it's time to hit the showers, find breakfast, and roll on up the road.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | A view from the canoe in Hungry Mother Lake... |
HUNGRY MOTHER STATE PARK, Va., Sept. 23 (LFJ) - It is cool again here in the mountains at night, but there's no Wi-Fi in range. Too bad more of these RV travelers don't have satellite hook ups with wireless routers, open for the taking.
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | Nathan's Famous Hotdog stand at Coney Island |
The Coney Island humidity was rising as I left the Brooklyn end of Long Island over the Statin Island bridge during rush hour Friday afternoon. Not a bad crawl in a van with a majestic view of big water.
The Potomac humidity was so high in College Park, Maryland, Saturday afternoon that I just wanted to hit the mountain road south with the AC blasting and Big and Rich on the stereo.
As the sun began to set in the Appalachians, the purple peaks and pink sky lay out as far as you could see, one rolling hill after another along the old Indian trail winding through the gap.
We found a connection at a hotel lobby in Marion, Virginia, just fast enough to update the headlines. But for now, it's time to get the boat in the water in the Hungry Mother Lake.
Legend has it that when the Native Americans destroyed several settlements on the New River south of where the state park is now, settler Molly Marley and her small child were among the survivors taken to the raiders’ base north of the park. They eventually escaped, wandering through the wilderness eating berries.
Molly finally collapsed. Her child wandered down a creek until it found help. The only words the child could utter were "Hungry Mother." The search party arrived at the foot of the mountain where Molly collapsed to find the child's mother dead. Today that mountain is Molly’s Knob, and the stream is Hungry Mother Creek.
Should make for an interesting float and a picture or two.
Hungry Mother State Park
Update
We made it in and out of the lake, with photos, on the official first day of fall, but it's time to head on down to the Great Smoky Mountains to find a camp for the night. Fast Krystal hotspot on Highway 129 on the way from Knoxville to Maryville.
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | I had one last hotdog at Coney Island Friday before heading back south. The summer season is over, so the beach was not crowded at all... |
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | There is a hole in the sky as well as the ground on the former site of the World Trade Center, wiped out by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. |
by Paul Jordon
Week Four of the Southeastern Conference football season finds paranoia running wild (well, for a two teams at least), a couple of teams that are right about where pundits expected them to be, a couple of teams that are exceeding expectations and a couple more that had high hopes but are now floundering.
It seems that NFL football has affected SEC football as Georgia closed its practices for the first time in memory last week and Florida did the same, except for parents of players. This comes in the wake of the scandal involving the New England Patriots and the New York Jets. The Pats were caught stealing the Jets' defensive signals during their recent game.
Georgia Coach Mark Richt's paranoia is somewhat understandable. His Bulldogs play Coach Nick Saban's Alabama Crimson Tide this Saturday … and Saban is a former assistant for and a good friend of the Patriots' head coach, Bill Belichick.
A look at the early goings on and the polls would seem to indicate the likelihood of a LSU-Florida matchup in the SEC title game.There are six teams in the Top 25 national polls this week - just as there have been every week, including the preseason picks. The cast keeps changing every week, but LSU has been No. 2 on every poll and Florida has moved up to No. 3.
But there is still a lot of football to be played and the Bayou Tigers and the Gators aren't the only SEC teams at 3-0 after three weeks. There are five league unbeatens at the moment - and the other three are certainly surprises. Alabama, South Carolina and Kentucky are all perfect so far this season.
For Bama's Saban and the Gamecocks' Steve Spurrier, being undefeated and tied for the lead in their divisions isn't a new feeling - just with different teams now. But for Kentucky's Rich Brooks, it is a whole new ball game.
Two teams - Auburn and Tennessee - have been major busts to date in '07. Both are 1-2, with one of Tennessee's defeats a conference loss to Florida. Vol Coach Phil Fulmer said jokingly last week that his team was “disappointed but not dead.” It won't take too many more losses before the statement isn't a joke.
The question of what is wrong with Auburn is easy to answer in one word - turnovers. The Tigers are tops in turnovers in the nation - a stat you never want to have the lead in - with 12. That is four per game. Anyone who knows anything about football knows that turnovers will kill you. A team can lead in yardage, first down, time of possession and all other stats but still lose the game if it loses the turnover battle.
There are four conference games on tap this weekend and three should-be cake walks.
The spotlight games will be in Baton Rouge, La., and Tuscaloosa, Ala. South Carolina, ranked No. 12, will be visiting LSU in a battle of highly-ranked teams. It is the kind of game that Spurrier loves to win.
No. 16 Bama hosts No. 22 Georgia in another battle of ranked squads. This will be the fifth meeting between the two when both are ranked and the Bulldogs have won four of those. But Georgia has won the last two meetings and has not won three in a row over the Tide since 1916. But another bad omen for Alabama may be the fact that ESPN's College GameDay program is being broadcast from Tuscaloosa Saturday. Bama has a 3-6 record with GameDay on site, including an 0-4 mark in Tuscaloosa.
Other league games include No. 21 Kentucky at now unranked Arkansas (1-1) and Florida at Ole Miss (1-2).
Non-league games have Mississippi State (2-1) hosting Gardner-Webb (1-1), Tennessee at home to Arkansas State (1-1) and Auburn entertaining New Mexico State (2-1).
The Auburn-NMS game could be interesting in that the Lobos are coached by former Kentucky head coach Hal Mumme. Mumme's wide open passing attack that often features five wideouts and no one but the QB in the backfield will be a test for the young Auburn secondary. Kentucky led the SEC in passing ever year (1997-2000) under Mumme and NMS is currently ranked No. 5 in the nation in passing offense.
This weekend's college football TV schedule kicks off tonight, Friday, with Oklahoma visiting Tulsa at 7 p.m. on ESPN2.
Saturday's weekend TV lineup, other than pay-for-view is as follows:
Clemson at N.C. State, 11 a.m., WB
N.C. at South Fla., 11 a.m., ESPN
E. Carolina at West Va., 11 a.m., ESPN2
Ga. Tech at Virginia, 11 a.m., ESPNU
Florida at Ole Miss, 11:30 a.m., Lincoln Financial Sports
Army at B.C., noon., ESPN Classic
Penn St. at Michigan, 2:30 p.m., ABC
South Carolina at LSU, 2:30 p.m., CBS
Michigan St. at Notre Dame, 2:30 p.m., NBC
Memphis at Central Fla., 2:30 p.m., CSS
Northwestern at Ohio St., 2:30 p.m., ESPN
Texas Tech at Oklahoma St., 2:30 p.m., FSN South
Maryland at Wake Forest, 2:30 p.m., ESPNU
Arizona at California, 5 p.m., Versus
Kentucky at Arkansas, 5 p.m., ESPN2
Rice at Texas, 6 p.m., FSN South
Connecticut at Pitt, 6 p.m., ESPNU
Georgia at Alabama, 6:45 p.m., ESPN
Iowa at Wisconsin, 7 p.m., ABC
Purdue at Minnesota, 9 p.m., ESPN2
Washington at UCLA, 9:15 p.m., FSN South
Alabama A&M at Grambling, 9:15 p.m., ESPNU
Secret Vistas
by Glynn Wilson
BROOKLYN, NY, Sept. 20 - There is another party going on in Greenwich Village and everyone is trying to get me to come.
Instead, in the city that never sleeps, on my third night here, I've finally caught a few quiet moments to think in front of the laptop with a little jazz in the background and a 12-pack of Yuengling on ice.
As is often the case in the time of our lord and king George W. Bush, I'm thinking about revolutionary stuff.
Camped out here in the place where the first major battle of the American Revolution was fought, the "Battle of Brooklyn," I'm wondering what the people here think about it all.
But since they are speaking in Yiddish, I am having a hard time understanding them as their melodic language floats out the windows on a cool September night and blends right in with the jazz.
They are having a hard time understanding me, too, I'm sure, since I must sound to them like every dumbass redneck they have ever seen on TV when some horrible crime is reported from the American South, a major hurricane hits the Gulf Coast - or some football coach gets run off from some big college for hanging out in nudie bars cavorting with strippers.
I haven't talked to a single soul here yet who likes George Bush or his policies, so it must be a fine neighborhood, although I'm fully aware of the fact that General George Washington's Continental Army got its ass whipped their very first time on a battlefield by the well-trained British "Redcoats" here that day on August 27, 1776. The British burned down a quarter of New York then, but somehow, Washington and his army escaped to fight another day.
And that's a good thing. Otherwise, the war could have all been over and we would still all be British subjects, living in an Old Country monarchy despised by the world.
Now we're just a New World quasi-monarchy despised by the world and ruled at the will of the descendents of the British Loyalists, who don't mind at all mixing their religion and politics.
It was the Dutch who were smart enough to first settle this western edge of Long Island, although they had to convince the Canarsie Native American tribe - and the Mohawks - to let them take it over. Gunpowder played a role in that, of course, although they ostensibly did pay for some of the land in the 1630s.
The Dutch West India Company "authorized' it in 1644, and the Village of Breuckelen became the first municipality in what is now New York State, according to the Wikipedia online encyclopedia.
Perhaps due to its location and climate, Brooklyn has been the setting for some key figures in American letters since Washington's Army finally sent the crown's Navy into escape across the Atlantic Ocean.
In the classic poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," Walt Whitman wrote of the Brooklyn waterfront. In the novel Sophie's Choice, William Styron writes from Flatbush, just off Prospect Park. The 1955 play A View From the Bridge by Arthur Miller is set here.
Many writers make their home in the Park Slope neighborhood and are sometimes referred to as the "Park Slope intelligentsia."
We didn't meet any of them on this trip, although we did tour the new New York Times building today thanks to a certain editorial writer who used to be a copy editor on the national desk. We won't name him, because we're not sure he would like that. But he is a super nice guy and we enjoyed the short and gracious tour.
Too bad I didn't make it up here in time to see the old newsroom for the Old Gray Lady, but that also happened to me in Chicago when they cubicalized that newsroom on the week of my visit for an academic conference in 1999.
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | I was struck by this Woman in White, painted by Picasso in 1923. It's one of the more straight, realistic pieces in Picasso's modern work. But he was so prolific, we can't run all the one's we liked here. It's more than worth the trip if you get a chance to catch them at The Met |
We also managed to make it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art today - before it closed - and caught the Picassos, a Van Gough or two and three famous paintings by Henri Matisse.
Since old Pablo was such a hero to my old friend Spider Martin of Civil Rights photography fame, I had to see what Picasso was all about. And where else but "The Met," right next to Central Park, where we managed to catch some jazz in the trees and a green moment on a grassy knoll.
Yesterday, we got the tour of The Nation Institute and visited ground zero. And Tuesday night, I met with a certain crusading lawyer/writer associated with Harpers.org I like to call "Superman" at the Grand Central Station Oyster bar.
It shouldn't be too hard to figure out why I call him Superman, considering the mission to preserve "truth, justice and the American way" in Bush's America. I figured out on this trip, to interject a bit of humility, that I am only Superboy.
We haven't heard anything out of the House Judiciary Committee yet, or the Eleventh Circuit, on the Siegelman investigation. But we understand there's a little controversy going on in Alabama between Gov. Bob "Cowboy boots" Riley and Rep. Artur Davis, although we've been too busy riding subway trains and walking the streets of New York - like a bataan death march - to keep up with all the local details from here.
It looks like once again, it was all started by the Birmingham Ruse Newhouse newspaper anyway, so its likely nothing to get all riled up about.
They say New Yorkers walk an average of five miles a day. No wonder they look so thin on TV. In Birmingham, hell we have to drive to get anywhere.
Since Karl Rove has packed up his White House office and moved back to Texas, where they know him as "Turd Blossom," and since it looks like the justice train is whistling a different tune down in Washington for now, we can have a little fun. Maybe we'll make it to that party after all.
You know what I always say.
"The party's more fun when the work is done."
 | | Photo by Michael Braunstein | | Ground Zero: After leaving Washington D.C. on Monday, I made my way to New York. The World Trade Center site in Manhatten is a construction zone and the subject of controversy, but the Freedom Tower will go up in it's place. Wikipedia: World Trade Center |
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | "All the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing, and a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous Judiciary," Andrew Jackson said. "Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right," Jackson also said, "but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error." Mr. Bush? Are you in there? |
Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson
CHERRY HILL PARK, Md., Sept. 17 - Sipping the hazelnut cream coffee, looking up at the peace flag on the RV two spaces down and listening to Chris Dodd on C-SPAN Radio talking about the continuing investigation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales - and the lack of an investigation of Bush, Cheney and Rove - I can't help but think that if Dodd's moderate views represent the mainstream views of the Democratic Party, then we are fucked.
In Bush's world, the National Park Police no longer estimate crowds at protest marches on The National Mall, so we don't know if there were 10,000 people (the amount allowed under the permit) or many more.
In fact, it seems to be the national obsession of the Washington press corps to downplay the size of the crowd when the protest is from the left, and hype it when the Christians come to town for the Million Man marches.
Some people I talked to said it had to be 100,000 people or more, although due to my own experience estimating crowds, I would say it was closer to 50,000 - if you count all the protesters on the side of the road holding signs, and the press.
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | War or peace? You decide... |
It was a big march no matter how you look at it, if not the biggest protest Washington has ever seen, certainly. But still, being in the middle of it really got a person's adrenaline going. Chills went up my spine a couple of times just being in the presence of people with the courage to come here and do this. And maybe it's a good start.
As I have been saying for a long time, what is needed is about a million people surrounding the White House with candles at sunset with the chant: "Get out now! Get out now!"
While the rich members of Congress might think it will be OK to just ride the bad publicity against Bush and his Iraq War into the 2008 election, that will not bring back America's reputation in the world. And it will not stop the need to fight our radical enemies in the Middle East.
Their main grievance is that we are over there. Our main action should be to shift our energy technologies away from Middle Eastern oil. It really is that simple. But that would not continue to make the executives and stockholders of Exxon-Mobile, Southern Company, Halliburton and Lockheed-Martin mega-rich.
The Republicans can continue waving the flag and pretending that patriotism means profit all they want, but we should not take it anymore.
The real Americans here are those who traveled from near and far to take part in the protest. To face the U.S. Capitol riot police and put your entire life and career at risk? Now that takes patriotism.
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | A decked out U.S. Capitol riot policeman with the first two people arrested going up the Capitol steps in the background. |
TAKOMA PARK, Md. - It's such a fine fall-like Sunday in Maryland that we are heading out to explore the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park to get the canoe wet, maybe, in the Potomac River.
I caught up with Jill Simpson and Patricia Duncan last night near the Spy Museum in downtown Washington and got the scoop, although since her appearance before the House Judiciary Committee was supposed to be confidential, we can't report on it, yet.
We have more pictures from the protest march to go through and will post more as time and Net access allows. The plan is still on to head for New York Monday night for a couple of days, then back through Philadelphia for a little Revolutionary history tour, then back through the D.C. area on the way back to Alabamaland.
Update
Well, it looks like there is a doable loop at Swains Lock in National Park territory along the river where you can camp for free on foot or bike or boat. But there was a big crowd on Sunday afternoon, so we headed on over to the Cherry Hill Park campground for the night. And what a treat! High speed wireless Internet in the park.
Plus, there's an Irish band playing in the park convention hall and a few protesters still hanging out from all over the country with Impeach Bush bumper stickers. Should be a party tonight...
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | I won't bore you with many of these, but I couldn't resist doing this self portrait since it shows the "Holy Grail" of van camp blogging - Wi-Fi in a campground on a picnic table. Every state should be doing it... |
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | Protesters made it to the
Capitol at the end of a long day of marching |
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | Jim Fox marches the last leg of the anti-Bush march |
by Glynn Wilson
WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 15 - Jim Fox rode a train for three and a half days by himself from Seattle, Washington to the nation's capital just to march in protest of President Bush's policies, even though he can barely walk due to his Muscular Dystrophy.
The number one reason he was inspired to make the trip and brave the walk, the heavy police presence and the counter demonstraters was the Iraq war, he said.
"Attacking Iraq was insanity. It could kick off a nuclear, religious World War III," he said, "and probably will."
That is if the Democrats now in control of Congress don't act and Bush is not stopped.
Mr. Fox, 66, spent a number of years in the Peace Corps overseas, including stints in Bangladesh and Iran, and he said the people of Iran are especially pro-American in spite of Bush's intervention in the Middle East.
On his most recent trip to Iran just in the past few months, he said, "The Iranian people could not have been nicer. But they don't understand what the Bush administration is doing with 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq."
He has lobbied his Congressman, Rick Larson, a Democrat representing Washington State, to support impeachment proceedings against Cheney and Bush.
Larson recently told him in a letter, however, that "we will just have to agree to disagree" on that course of action.
"He sees no reason to support impeachment," Fox said. "These Democrats think they can skate into office free in 2008. But he is not getting my vote for free."
He worked for Larson before, he said. "But next time he is not getting my vote for free. I think I'll work against him."
Due to Mr. Fox's condition, which could be helped by stem cell research Bush opposes, he had to skip part of the march and take the Metro over to the Capitol for the end of the march.
In addition to his "No blood for oil" bumper sticker, he carried a 35 mm Pentax K-1000 film camera he bought in 1964 before his first stint in the Peace Corps.
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | Redneck counter demonstraters accuse marchers of being traitors and Communists |
While walking by a group of counter demonstraters standing on a wall with a flag and bashing the anti-war protesters, blathering some nonsense about Communists infiltrating the American peace movement, he grew angry and lashed out at them as he limped by.
"We are so glad you are so smart and have it all figured out," he said in a loud and angry outburst. "Sorry," he said, turning back around to the conversation. "Sometimes I just get mad."
They made no move to counter him. But just down the street on the Capitol steps, close to 200 people jumped the wall of security and some laid down in a "die-in" to represent the dead and dying troops in Iraq.
On the Red Line train from Takoma Park, Maryland on the way to the protest, former two-term city councilman Hank Prensky, 61, led a small group into "the belly of the beast" that is downtown Washington.
He strongly favors Bush's impeachment as about the only way to prove to the world that Americans truly believe in truth and justice.
Susan Ogden, 58 and also of Takoma Park - where they say the "liberals go to spawn" or raise kids near the nation's capital city - also favors impeachment of Bush for all the scandals he's been involved in. She brought her 15-year-old daughter Sasha Saidman with her on the train. And though she is not old enough to vote, even she opposes Bush.
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | Hank Prensky leads a group of anti-war protesters Saturday, including Susan Ogden, Sasha Saidman and Harold Geggings, 29, of Spartanburg, South Carolina |
 | | Photo by Glynn Wilson | | Finally, a break from the road and some high speed Internet time. Yea, yea, I know, this is a fair and balanced feature photo from the anti-war march in DC today. But hey, who can object to a Simpson's movie reference in the front of the White House with Cheney looking out the window? If I can stay awake tonight, or get online in the morning, I've got a couple of great stories to tell. Now if I could just find the van keys ... oh wait, there they are! |
SILVER SPRING, Md., Sept. 14 (LFJ) - The rain is dripping from the trees again in the DC metro area, but the camping weather looks like gold for the next few days.
We spent Thursday night in the dark at Lake Anna State Park, which used to be known as "Gold Hill" because gold was discovered in the area around Louisa, Virginia in 1829. It reached its peak in the 1880s, and somehow, this close to the nation's capital, no one seems to have heard of the new gold, the Internet - or at least not free high speed wireless (Wi-Fi) for travelers.
They do know something about nuclear power there, however, which might explain the look of some of their kids in the Food Lion.
Even along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington there seems to be a Net black-out in all the coffee shops. And some customers, when asked, nod at the omnipresent Capitol Police as the reason. They won't say anything about it out loud. They just say it's not working for some reason, and cast a sideways glance at the black Suburbans on every corner.
Excuse me for saying so, but wouldn't it seem to make sense that if the prying eyes of the nation's security apparatus were truly concerned about "terrorism" around the White House and the Capitol, wouldn't they want to use all that power under the Patriot Act to read the e-mails of bad guys instead of preventing them from sending their evil messages?
But that's Bush's Washington for you. Nothing makes sense.
Or, just maybe, they are worried about the 10,000 protestors expected to descend on The White House on Saturday for an anti-war march and rally, to culminate in a "die-in" in front of the Capitol in the early afternoon.
Week of Antiwar Events To Start With a 'Die-In'
We'll be there to get some color and photos and check in on Cindy Sheehan. And maybe we'll see Jill Simpson and her lawyer from Montgomery there too.
The word is that the North Alabama lawyer's interview went well before the House Judiciary Committee staff today in the Siegelman investigation, although the word was mum outside the committee conference room as the Washington bureau gang of the Alabama press hung out in the hallway outside the door.
Judiciary Panel Takes Sworn Testimony From Simpson in Siegelman Case
The Newhouse press even got chairs in the hall, while us members of the periodical press and the Web press had to stand and dodge the cops checking up on us, wondering why in the world anyone would be standing around in the hallways of Congress. I guess they just like to keep the tourists moving along.
And, I guess the take over of Congress by the Democrats in 2006 has not yet taken a firm grip on the pecking order, at least where press priorities are concerned. Maybe they just don't realize where the real gold lies - if they want to change the future.
by Paul Jordon
Auburn out, S.C. in!
Talking about the Top 25 football poll, in which the Southeastern Conference continues to have a great showing.
Six SEC teams were in the national poll before the season began and it's the same story today. That's almost one-fourth of the ranked teams coming from the SEC … very good representation considering there are six BCS leagues. No other conference has more than four teams in the poll.
With its second straight impressive blowout win last week - this one coming against a good football program, not an "initial school" or lower division patsy (48-7 over Virginia Tech) - No. 2 ranked LSU proved itself to be the most dangerous team in America at this point in time. The Tigers should be ranked No. 1, not No. 2. Other ranked teams this week include No. 5 Florida, No. 12 South Carolina, No. 18 Arkansas, No. 22 Tennessee and No. 23 Georgia.
Other SEC swap in the polls could occur this week if one of this week's top games comes out in favor of the Alabama Crimson Tide. Unranked Bama, 2-0 after coming off a solid win over Vandy last week, will welcome Arkansas to Tuscaloosa Saturday.
Another solid victory this week should propel Coach Nick Saban's Tide into the Top 25. A loss Saturday would drop the Hogs … like Auburn last week … right out of the polls.
There are four conference games on this week's SEC schedule - with the annual battle between Florida and Tennessee taking top billing.
The winner of the annual Gator-Vol clash more often than not goes on to take the Eastern Conference title … a fact not forgotten by coaches and fans on both sides and the big reason this is always a huge early-season contest.
A win by Tennessee would go a long way toward reestablishing its confidence and reputation - both of which took a hit in the loss to California. A win by Florida would vault the Gators into the "one of the best in the nation" or "a team to watch" category.
There are two interesting trends in the game. The first bodes well for Tennessee - both teams have been ranked for their past 18 meetings and the lower-ranked team has won 10 of those games. The second bodes well for Florida - 100 of 108 players on the Gators' roster have never lost to Tennessee.
A huge game for Tommy Tuberville and the Auburn Tigers is on tap for Saturday when Mississippi State invades The Plains. The Bulldogs will be hungry to prove last week's win over Tulane was not a fluke and they are on the way back. Auburn comes in knowing another tepid showing after the squeaker over Oklahoma State and the loss to South Florida would put its season into a tailspin.
The final league game is a lower tier battle between Eastern Division cellar-dweller Vandy and Western Division doormat Ole Miss in Nashville. Both teams come in a 1-1 overall.
The top non-conference contest may well be an interstate battle that usually is of interest only to fans in the Bluegrass State. But this Saturday's Louisville at Kentucky matchup has much bigger implications. The SEC is 3-3 against non-conference foes from leagues whose champion automatically qualifies for the BCS. So for the SEC, the game is big because of what it represents. A win by unranked Kentucky over the No. 9-ranked Cardinals, coming after LSU's whipping of Virginia Tech, would only enhance the SEC's image. A loss would mean the SEC falls to below .500 against BCS teams.
The other three SEC games on this week's slate are laughers more fit for opening day massacres - Georgia hosting Western Carolina, South Carolina hosting South Carolina State and LSU entertaining (it will be that for Tigers fans, but a painful experience for Blue Raider supporters) Middle Tennessee.
This weekend's college football TV schedule kicks off tonight, Friday, with an intriguing intersectional matchup that should give fans a quick comparison between two teams from the Heart of Dixie. Oklahoma State, which gave Auburn fits before the Tigers pulled off a fourth-quarter comeback in the season opener for both teams, will travel once again to south Alabama, this time taking on Troy University at 7 p.m. on ESPN.
Saturday's weekend TV lineup, other than pay-for-view is as follows:
Virginia at N.C., 11 a.m., WB
Towson St. at Mass., 11 a.m., CSS
Pitt at Michigan St., 11 a.m., ESPN
Central Mich. at Purdue, 11 a.m., ESPN2
Illinois at Syracuse, 11 a.m., ESPNU
Mississippi St. at Auburn, 11:30 a.m., Lincoln Financial Sports
Iowa at Iowa St., 12:30 p.m., Versus
Notre Dame at Michigan, 2:30 p.m., CBS
Tennessee at Florida, 2:30 p.m., ABC
Rhode Island at Delaware, 2:30 p.m., CSS
Ohio State at Washington, 2:30 p.m., ESPN
Texas at Central Florida, 2:30 p.m., ESPN2
FIU at Miami, 2:30 p.m., ESPNU
UCLA at Utah, 4 p.m., Versus
Arkansas at Alabama, 5:45 p.m., ESPN
Georgia Southern at Coastal Carolina, 6 p.m., SportSouth
Louisville at Kentucky, 6:30 p.m., ESPN Classic
Boston College at Georgia Tech, 7 p.m., ESPN2
Southern Cal at Nebraska, 7 p.m., ABC
FSU at Colorado, 9 p.m., ESPN
Hampton at N.C. A&T, 10 p.m., ESPNU
PANTHER CREEK STATE PARK, Tenn., Sept. 13 (LFJ) - The road rolls out there, up there, hey, hey, ho, ho.
 | | Self Portrait by GW |
Camped in the woods in the dark at the Panther Creek State Park campground last night near the Holston River just a few miles north of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Legend has it that both Panther Creek and Panther Springs, located about 1 1/2 miles southeast of the park, received their names from the claim of a Colonel Bradley of Virginia who, while exploring the area, shot a panther here. The big cat fell dead into the spring.
I didn't see any panthers. There probably are none left in these parts since scared men killed them all. But there was a brave group of about five or six fawns feeding in the grass near the bath house as we pulled in about midnight last night. And we heard the sound of coyotes in the forest.
Read Scott Horton and the silly Birmingham News editorial today for the latest info and fun. No time for more blogging now at the Krystal hotspot. On to Virginia...
Panther Creek State Park
It's time for a fall trip. Let's go...
"I needed something to pare the fat off my soul, to scare the shit out of me, to make me grateful, again, for being alive."
- Colin Fletcher, River, R.I.P.
Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson
Major trip preparations can take your mind off other things. Like the news that it's been six years since 9/11.
Catching up on cable on my last night in Alabamaland for awhile, I did take a moment to remember.
I looked up the column I wrote that week as a faculty member for The Moroon college newspaper at Loyola University New Orleans. I don't think I've read it since it appeared on Friday, Sept. 14, 2001.
The column documented some indelible images from that day and assessed the media coverage - history on the run.
"How will the media handle this day? How will we handle this horrific tragedy?," I wrote. "Remember. The answers will define us for the rest of our lives."
Media Coverage Brings Stories, Images to Country
Then I think about what's happened since. How President Bush and co. blew away the good will of not only the American people, but people around the world with the ill-conceived and disastrous invasion of Iraq.
And now if Bush and Cheney and Gen. David H. Petraeus have their way, tens of thousands of U.S. troops will be in Iraq for years to come. In case you haven't caught on to this yet, we've been saying for two and a half years there was never any plan to get out. This was to be a long-range staging area for world and oil domination - and the political card to turn the U.S. over to the GOP for a generation.
Well, it didn't work out with roses, so Bush and co. have to continue to pretend that the surge is working to try and withdraw, somehow, "with honor." It's hard to see anything honorable coming out of this, except perhaps for a Texas jail cell for someone higher up in the political food chain than former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.
I guess if you are the most clueless leader of the free world in history, however, there's no choice but to pretend everything's OK and just go on playing Howdy Doody on TV. Continue the ratings failed puppet show until the contract runs out - or until someone fires you, which would mean impeachment. And for some reason, we can't even consider that, according to the pundits and the Democrats in Congress.
Can America stand another 16 months of this? How many scandals does it take?
Oh well, back to the trip. I'll be looking in the front windows of the White House in a couple of days from Lafayette Park at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It won't be the first time.
In 2004 and 2005 I used to ride my Cannondale mountain bike from Alexandria, Virginia, through the Carlisle Group compound, down the Potomac River and by National Airport (I never liked it when they renamed it for Reagan). It's a 14 mile ride that eventually takes you across the river at the Jefferson Memorial, and onto to the National Mall - framed by the monuments of Lincoln and Washington and the Capitol itself. The White House is just off The Mall by a park known for its protests dating back to the Vietnam War. Ride around the White House and there's that statue of Andrew Jackson on his goddamned horse. There are many benches there where you should be able to sit and think, although the cell phones and the omnipresent Secret Service agents and park police make real contemplation difficult.
It is one of the busiest and most intense places in the world not only because of the number of people who cram into the area around Washington, D.C. It is the sheer power and security of the place that keeps your attention focused in a level of awareness that is impossible to escape.
Even back across the river in Virginia in a park, reading a good Civil War book, you can never really escape the intense feeling of where you are and what you are close to.
Every time the presidential helicopter flies overhead, or its decoy, you are constantly aware that for the slightest of reasons, some cop there could think you are a criminal or a terrorist - and whisk you away to Guantanamo (or simply the D.C. jail).
But if you have a van with a canoe on top, a digital recorder and camera, and a Capitol press credential, you might have a chance - if you don't put a PRESS sign on the outside of your vehicle.
Woops! Someone warned me I should get that LocustFork.Net sign off my back window. After the Jill Simpson story broke with the stuff about the fire and her car being run off the road, one friend even said, the one who loaned me the River book, "Knock out that damn back window and get rid of it."
But no, I like promoting my domain name on the back window of the Chevy van. I often get waves and honks from others on the road with blue dot bumper stickers on their cars. In Alabama, women drive up beside me and hold up their blue dots to show me through the window. They are too afraid to stick them on their cars in the land of Karl Rove's Supreme Court and Bob Riley's cowboy boots.
So once again I will be cowboying in the van across the American South to D.C. and beyond. This time the plan involves van camping in three state parks in three states, Virginia, Maryland - and Pennsylvania, on the way back from New York.
There will be a little old hearing at the Rayburn House Office building on Friday, and Saturday, a bit of war protesting on The Mall - great photo and blog material, if we don't get arrested.
Cross your fingers, say your prayers or whatever, then check us out again in a day or two. We should have some fun to report.
Last fall I spent 12 days van camping and chasing bird pictures and free high speed wireless Internet connections all down the Gulf Coast, and four days in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.
Friends in high plac |
